Shenzhen activates China’s first 10,000-card AI cluster with domestic chips

China’s southern tech hub Shenzhen began operations of the country’s first 10,000-card intelligent computing cluster, built with advanced chips made by Huawei Technologies, in the latest sign of how the country is deepening its push for home-grown computing capabilities.Featuring a computing capacity of 11,000 petaflops, the new cluster, activated last week, is the country’s first 10,000-card intelligent computing cluster built with Huawei’s Ascend 910C AI chips, according to Shenzhen-special-zone-daily" class="entity-link entity-organization" data-entity-id="34532" data-entity-type="organization">Shenzhen Special Zone Daily, the city’s official newspaper.Combined with the 3,000-petaflop cluster activated last year, which had already been fully booked, the facility now has a total computing capacity of 14,000 petaflops.Nearly 50 organisations had signed computing power framework agreements for the newly launched cluster, bringing the combined booking rate across both phases to 92 per cent, according to the Shenzhen-special-zone-daily" class="entity-link entity-organization" data-entity-id="34532" data-entity-type="organization">Shenzhen Special Zone Daily.The newly operational intelligent computing cluster underscores a massive appetite for computing power among the region’s AI start-ups, robotics firms and research universities.Zhang Luncheng, vice-president of robotics start-up X Square Robot, told the Shenzhen-special-zone-daily" class="entity-link entity-organization" data-entity-id="34532" data-entity-type="organization">Shenzhen Special Zone Daily that significant upgrades to the scale and quality of Shenzhen’s computing power had positioned the city as a national leader.